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According to Brookings, as the 2018 NATO summit begins in the shadow of President Donald Trump’s letters to allies demanding greater defense spending, the issue of burden-sharing once again will dominate the agenda. Though Trump’s consistent berating of allies may indeed spur higher defense spending, effective burden-sharing depends on a foundational belief in shared interests. The administration’s “America First” outlook, however, has prioritized U.S. autonomy above all else—an approach that may maximize short-term U.S. freedom of action, but at the expense of American influence and power over the long run.

Sovereignty has been the leitmotif of the Trump presidency. From the early days of his campaign, then-candidate Trump promised to “never enter America into any agreement that reduces our ability to control our own affairs.” He made headlines focusing his first U.N. speech on the concept—employing the word 21 times. The theme continues to motivate his rallies. Trump and key members of his team, like National Security Advisor John Bolton, reflect a school of hard sovereigntists who view external constraints on U.S. freedom of action as damaging to American sovereignty and interests.

Yet, as Stewart Patrick outlines in The Sovereignty Wars, sovereignty is not a unitary concept but rather a multifaceted one, the pieces of which are often in tension with each other. Enhancing one aspect of sovereignty comes at the expense of another. In the case of alliances and burden-sharing, this tension manifests most clearly in tradeoffs between a country’s “sovereignty-as-autonomy” and “sovereignty-as-influence.” A nation, consequently, must balance its ability “to make and implement decisions independently” against whether acting alone provides an “effective capacity to advance its interests.”

From the beginning, U.S. membership in NATO has forced compromises between autonomy and influence. The United States has consistently sought engagement while jealously guarding its independence.

According to Rural Life, Patrick and Amber Tyrrell are genuinely living the dream. It sounds a little like something out of a film script: South African farmer’s son meets Waitaki Valley farmer’s daughter in a co-operative agricultural community in the Israeli desert.

Eventually, they move to the Waitaki Valley, where they build an off-the-grid home with spectacular views, and focus on getting down to earth — literally. In February last year, Mr. and Mrs. Tyrrell launched Valley Views Glamping (glamorous camping) on their property in the foothills below Mount Domett.

“It feels like we’ve found our calling in life,” Mrs. Tyrrell said. Establishing such a business in what many overseas visitors would consider being the backblocks was a big risk, they acknowledged. But it was fast paying off as they encountered visitors from around the world, with whom they could share their story and vision.

“Stuck up here up this hill, looking at the beautiful view, we had no-one to share it with before — [Now] we’re sharing it with people all over the world. Even the locals don’t know what’s up to these side roads,” Mrs. Tyrrell said.

Mrs. Tyrrell (nee Slee) grew up on a farm just down the road from Valley Views, while her husband came from a farm on South Africa’s Eastern Cape, about 100km from Port Elizabeth, which produced citrus, tobacco, and vegetables.

It was a very similar area to the Waitaki Valley, although it had a different kind of beauty, the trained civil engineer said. The couple met in Israel, during their overseas adventures, and was married 25 years ago. They later settled in Christchurch and bought their 40ha property, near Otiake, at the end of 2007. Their vision was simple — they wanted to build an off-the-grid house, they wanted a view, some trees, and a creek, and they wanted to live a self-sustainable lifestyle. “We’re all about being kind to the earth,” Mrs. Tyrrell said.

According to Atlas Obscura, it’s hard to conduct a census of all of the living stuff scattered across Earth. The planet’s citizens—in the forms of tiny ocean bacteria, galloping mammals, or tangles of terrestrial plants—are found all over the place, from submarine fissures to craggy mountaintops. Many of these residents don’t answer their doorbells or respond to surveys, and they can be difficult to track down: Some spend their lives in realms most humans don’t see up close, and others are far too minuscule to be seen with the naked eye. You’ve got scores of prokaryotic neighbors you’ve never met.

Gauging exactly how much living stuff there is across the planet, and where, is an even trickier business. Most previous work in this vein has been limited to a single taxon—say, for instance, the distribution of microbes in ocean sediment. But researchers from Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science and the California Institute of Technology recently took a stab at it. Their goal was to calculate the mass and broad-strokes distribution of every living thing across plants, animals, bacteria, and archaea.

To do it, they measured each taxon’s biomass—that is, the weight of all the carbon they contain. Getting there required a bit of contortion. First, they collated hundreds of studies, ranging from field observations to remote data collected by sensors or satellites. (Speaking to The Guardian, the lead author Ron Milo described the process as a “meta-meta-analysis.”) Where this wasn’t available, they estimated—first puzzling out the general population estimate, average weight, and then converting that into suspected biomass, McdVoice survey.

This biomass tactic, the researchers explain, allows them to compare taxa whose members are vastly different sizes (making it possible, for instance, to pit termites against elephants). It doesn’t account for numbers of members, or for the number of species within a particular taxon.

According to Winds or Star, a new kind of nautical captain is emerging to fight filth along River Canard. Similar to those who adopt stretches of highway and commit to cleaning them of litter, lovers of the outdoors are being commissioned to adopt pieces of a local watershed to help keep them clean.

“People kept saying over the years, ‘Why don’t you do something?’” Ron LaPointe, the owner of River Canard Canoe Co., said of guests whose enjoyment of an Essex County natural jewel was marred by the environmental disrespect shown by others.

Last year, LaPointe helped organize an Earth Day cleanup and the response was modest. This year, after posting photos on social media of the types of trash some messy folks leave behind, “we’ve had a big public response,” he said.

Even before the canoes are passed out April 22 with gloves and garbage bags for participants to haul trash out of the historic watershed, LaPointe said environmentally minded folks are volunteering as river captains, taking on the cleanup responsibility for portions of the Canard.

“The one-day thing is nice, but the real deal is people looking after sections of the river — instead of doing it all in one day, now we can coordinate,” he said. With two couples already commissioned, the captains take on leadership roles, he said, hopefully inspiring others to join the ongoing cleanup effort.

Bottles, cans, and grocery bags are among the mostly plastic garbage that litters many parts of the watershed. LaPointe, who blames “lazy people” for the mess, said it’s no different than in other natural areas in the county and city. In addition to wayward bits of trash, he said there are places along the Canard where vehicles stop to dump household wastes, including roof shingles, pool covers, and hockey nets.

Rain or shine on April 22, volunteers are asked to dress for the weather and gather at River Canard Canoe Co. (9350 Malden Rd.) at 1 p.m. Gloves and bags will be provided. Cleaners can tackle the shoreline or grab a canoe and attack the litter from the water, find liquor store.

Only a few people are needed to affect change and one of them is Philippe Joubert. He is the founder of Earth on Board, a group of organizations that includes:

ClientEarth

CDP

B Team

We Mean Business

World Business Council for Sustainable Development

Their aim is to move boards away from focusing on short-term profits and to put sustainability first in order to build long-term value. “We have to explain that we cannot continue like this. Those who are not going to change are going to …. lose their leadership,” says Joubert.

Joubert has been the adviser of the CEOs since he left the board of rail and power group Alstom in 2014. He wanted an earth competent board, whose members understand the sustainability, exercising fiduciary rules, and the right questions of management. According to Ethical One corporation, one of Earth on Board’s central themes is honesty: “You cannot have an internal discussion of concern over sea level rise or extreme weather, and then externally say ‘it’s all fine’.”

It’s been two years since Joubert set up the Earth on Board and he is still making speeches and conducting seminars. His goal in 2018 is to establish all the interest that has been generated. He believes that it was the exchange of peers drive change, find liquor store.

“We take nature as unlimited and free of charge, but nature is sending signals,” Joubert adds. However, the signals are not always interpreted with alarm. While ice caps are melting, some businesses see opportunities for more business. “Do not ask the business to be altruistic, but they are basically realistic and they understand that they can’t operate profitably if the world is in chaos,” says Joubert.

Furthermore, Joubert found that December’s One Planet summit in Paris was “very much in line with what we’re saying.” Both the board and financial markets are now acknowledged as important actors: “Governments understand that without finance you cannot have changed at the right speed and the right scale.”

A book called “The Journal of Ethnobiology” was published late last year. Due to this, critters and fires have lately been in the news, courtesy of the fascinating study, which investigates the so-called “fire hawks.” According to Earth Touch News, the authors discussed the long phenomenon familiar to Aboriginal peoples – the raptors smolder sticks from the bushfires and drop them in the nearby grass, pluck flaming, which therefore sparks a new burn.

Some people may have never experienced the said event, which is definitely disastrous. It is nothing but a trouble to whomever or whatever creature encounters it. In the end, there is a more complicated story behind the intriguing case of firehawks.

At first, many other plant communities do not seem to be flammable. While intervals between fires took centuries or even millennium, one must understand that even cold subalpine woods, northern taiga, temperate rainforest indeed burn. However, as human beings, we became an important source of ignition around the world. We have been starting fires intentionally for thousands of years. This is for the purpose of improving hunt and herd opportunities, to use the land for agriculture and managing crops. Papa Murphy’s survey is the best place to reveal your feedback.

Moreover, a region’s exact fire regime relies on the overall suite of factors. Always be reminded that a place that burns frequently tends to encounter low-intensity fire. This is because there is not much time to build up much fuel. On the other hand, countryside that ignites once every few centuries nourish bigger and fiercer fires.

Furthermore, a raging fire in the forest may look apocalyptic and some individuals may perish in it. But this blaze can help the mountains be rejuvenated in terms of local wildlife and other resources. It becomes a unique chance for other species especially alive to capitalize on the post-fire landscape.

Green Earth Director Stephanie Eichholz said Long Forestry Consultant Group will donate its time and equipment to clear some space, which should have been a while ago. Eichholz said overtime that there has been a natural succession, which filled in the prairie with trees. She believes constant maintenance on the land will allow the seeds from existing trees to spread across the land causing additional growth.

Meanwhile, Eichholz said in 2008 that Green Earth switched from mowing the prairie to burning. She considers this as a better maintenance system. Eichholz adds the organization knew it would have to burn every two years, but it does not have the resources to conduct its own burn. It can be recalled how Green Earth relied on the Saluki Fire Dogs in 2008 and 2011. However, it has not been able to do so since.

Due to this, Eichholz said, “It has really started to fill in. There are trees that are too large to be affected by a fire. And hand clearing would be too labor intensive.” Green Earth has missed the “burn date,” which means it is now too wet to conduct a proper burn.

Eichholz recently got a call from Mike and Chris Long of Long Forestry telling her the company got a new piece of equipment called forestry mulcher and wanted to try it out. The equipment was described as a land clearing method that uses a single machine to grind, cut and clear vegetation. It uses a rotary drum equipped with steel chipper tools to shred vegetation. “They said they would go into the prairie and clear it out,” Eichholz added.

Furthermore, the prairie’s clearing is just one step in Green Earth’s plans to improve the preserve. According to the Southern Illinoisan, the Illinois Department of Natural Resource’s Recreational Trails Program recently awarded the organization with worth $102,000 to upgrade one of the trails at the site to ADA-friendly standards.

Having a meal may be easy but all the eating is not doing the earth any favors. According to The Guardian, Aussie consumers turf around 3.1m tones of edible food each year, which ends up rotting in the landfill. This reportedly gives off methane gases that further harm the environment.

The outlet revealed a simple solution to this issue. People must eat locally produced, chemical-free food and consume it all as what our ancestors did. To share and swap for eating free is also a great choice. Free food sharing movements around the country offer the opportunity to embrace organic food without paying a cent.

The brainchild of Andrew Barker, who lives in Strathalbyn, an hour south of Adelaide, the concept has spread to Perth and Victoria. “The fact that organic food is expensive money immediately precludes a huge percentage of people and means they have to eat fairly nutritionally deficient crap. But sharing is really powerful. People feel joy and happiness when they give freely to one another, whether it’s their neighbor or a complete stranger through a sharing cart,” Barker explained.

Growing your own and developing your green thumb is also a must as it would benefit so many people. Planting seeds and harvesting the resulting bounty can be the biggest food local source. It is worth understanding phrases such as “non-hybrid”, “open-pollinated” and “non-GM” first. Basically, people must avoid genetically modified and chemically bathed seeds or those cross-pollinated to create hybrid plants.

Meanwhile, one can get free ethical food by foraging. Begin to survey at the neighborhood and you will realize that food grows all around us. Plenty of weeds are edible, nutritious and delicious. Furthermore, weed foraging is an art. It is best to avoid accidentally eating sprays, dog pee or poisonous plants. With ingenuity, preparation and imagination, you can eat delicious food that’s as good for the planet as it is for you.

The universe is 14 billion years old with 100 billion galaxies and every single galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars. To make it simple, there are more stars in the universe than sand on any beach.

Several planets surround each star. Aside from hundreds of thousands of asteroids and billions of comets flying by each star, each planet has its own orbiting moon. One of the stars in the galaxy called Milky Way is the sun. It has eight planets orbiting it. As we all know, one of the planet we live in, Earth. Our planet has the right size and the right distance from the sun to have liquid water and oxygen, which support over 9 billion years of life form in the making.

Earth is only one of a trillion planets just in our Milky Way galaxy. There are still 100 billion other galaxies in the universe. Who knows how many other planets are habitable in this Universe? Meanwhile, the most intelligent of all creations on Earth is us, humans. You and I are two of the 7.5 billion people that have called Earth their home.

It is not how long we live that is important, but how well. Dust to dust. When death comes, one cannot take anything with them. It is only through helping the needy and the less fortunate that we fulfill the purpose of our brief existence. Caring (by giving people money from deposit with chase bank) and sharing earth is the basic tenet of God’s creation. We cannot exist without the help of billions of friendly bacteria that live within us.

Furthermore, there is nothing better than helping somebody in need. Always remember that any kind of help, in any aspect within our means, and all the time. That is the best way we can “give thanks” to the One who keeps us alive.

You would expect the idea of sharing earth’s resources equitably to be an idea that resonates with everyone. But as it turns out, there are huge numbers of people who are vehemently against that idea. There are people who actually find the very suggestion of sharing earth’s resources equitably to be a terrifying proposition. So, why is it that some people would be against this seemingly noble idea?

The answer to the question as to why some people are against the idea of sharing earth’s resources equitably is simple: there are some folks who know that they are hogging an unjustifiably big share of earth’s resources. Such folks therefore believe that if earth’s resources were to be shared equitably, they would end up being the losers: as a bit of what they hog would be taken and given to those who have nothing. These are folks used to living in luxury. These are the folks who can afford costly products, like, say, the highest rated over the ear headphones. To such folks, the idea of buying and using more modestly-priced products, such as the simple closed back on-ear headphones is unacceptable. They believe that they deserve ‘the best things in life’. Unfortunately, for them to do use the very best things in life, they end up depriving others of access to the rather limited earth’s resources. And knowing which side of their bread is buttered, they are (understandably) inclined to balk at any idea of sharing earth’s resources equitably.